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Monday, July 15, 2013

Research Proposals from My Religion

I've been reading The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin. In the first large portion of the book he explains five big fundamental problems in Physics, and examines how string theory has evolved to attempt to answer them. Here is his list:

The problem of
quantum gravity: Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single
theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature.

The foundational
problems of quantum mechanics: Resolve the problems in the foundations of
quantum mechanics, either by making sense of the theory as it stands or by
inventing a new theory that does make sense. [e.g. Why is the world
fundamentally probabilistic or random, and why does an observer shape the
outcome of a quantum event?]

The unification of
particles and forces: Determine whether or not the various particles and forces
can be unified in a theory that explains them all as manifestations of a
single, fundamental entity.

The tuning
problem: Explain how the values of the free constants in the standard model of
particle physics are chosen in nature.

The
problem of cosmological mysteries: Explain dark matter and dark energy. Or, if
they don't exist, determine how and why gravity is modified on large scales.
More generally, explain why the constants of the standard model of cosmology,
including the dark energy, have the values they do.

As Smolin lays it out, string theory arose principally to address the third problem, and it has made some amazing progress on this front. String theory provides a beautiful mathematical framework that completely unifies all of the fundamental forces and particles as vibrations of even more fundamental, higher dimensional strings. Everything we see falls out of a few simple rules govning these strings. Admittedly the math is pretty hard, but the rules are really simply stated in this math. Smolin, however, isn't satisfied. First off, everything doesn't fall out. Problem three might be solved, but 1, 2, 4, and 5 still have unanswered portions. In addition, we don't just get the things we have observed. We get a slew of other particles and dimensions that we haven't observed, so string theory has to hide these beyond our ability to observe--beyond the realm of expiriment or experience--beyond the purview of experimental science. Further, string theory isn't one theory. It is a large collection of theories, most of which haven't been fully explored, the ones that have been explored most thoroughly don't match all the things we know about the universe from experience, and the ones we haven't explored may be so complicated or so many in number that it may be a very long time before we find the one that is testably right or prove that they are all wrong. String theory ends up being a moving target. It doesn't make any testable predictions that aren't also made by other theories. When part of one string theory becomes testable, if it isn't substantiated, you can just modify it to hide something a little better or switch to working on a little more complicated version of string theory. In these ways, string theory is arguably not even science. Smolin doesn't go this far, but he does assert that we would do well to spend more of our time and resources on other theories that have the benefits of making testable predictions, despite the testimony of some string theorists that string theory must be true because it is so beautiful. How is it that everyone doesn't see the truth of string theory?

My crisis

Smolin is terribly convincing, to me. Since I am not invested in string theory, it is no problem for me to accept that other theories of physics might be better than string theory, but reading his book did cause me some distress. You see, I view myself as a Theist and as a scientist. I've constructed for myself a multiverse that predicts the existense of God (in fact, many), that predicts the characteristics of goodness, altruism, and limited interventionism, that predicts apotheosis and devils (competing gods), and that has a passable answer for the problem of evil. This view of existence holds up to the best reasoning I understand. My God is compatible with the discoveries of science. My God fits with evolution--is predicted by evolution. I like to think my views can withstand rational scrutiny, and that I am committed to scientific reasoning as far as it can be correctly applied. I hold with Sterling Talmadge, that no one is justified in dogmatizing regarding things that are subject to measurement, and that if someone loses faith in religion because their measurements disagree with dogma, it is the fault of the dogma, not the measurement. (Go check out the book, Can Science Be Faith Promoting. Too bad it never made it as the Sunday School manual it was written to be.)I have this way of reasoning where, when my understanding of God comes face to face with something measurable, I expect God to measure up, or I expect my dogma was wrong. It seems to me the only responsible way to be a religious scientist--you have to hold your understanding of God just as tentatively as you hold your scientific beliefs. You use what helps you understand and function in the world the best you can, and if you find out you were wrong you change. So why was Smolin's book a minor crisis for me? I'll try to explain. If you are a Mormon, you'll understand what I mean when I mention a veil of forgetfulness. We enter this life with no memory of our life with God. None of us have any proof of God until after the trial of our faith. My cosmology strongly suggests the utility of a stage of existence where there is no scientific proof of God. Both my Mormonism and my evolutionary cosmology assert the untestability of God. I never found this very problematic. There are many things that can never be tested scientifically, but are true. The very foundations of science can never be tested. It is even possible that the majority of what is true can never be tested scientifically. Consequently, I was happy to take the beauty and coherence of my conception of God as scientifically reasonable evidence. All scientists do this with certain of their assumptions, even if they haven't taken the time to acknowledge it or discover what those assumptions are, so I figured I was in good company. Then I read Smolin.

String theory is beautiful to many physicists. It holds out promise of answers to many questions, and does so in a very elegant way. They trust it will reveal more truth to them as they press forward. But that is faith, not science (although I don't really believe the two, correctly understood, are separable). When there are other theories that explain the same things and possibly explain some parts better, it is not very rational to ignore these other theories and not give them serious consideration. I found myself faced with a conflict. If my worldview truly makes no unique predictions, and if it is not falsifiable, how can I expect that any reasonable person should seriously consider my views over others?

Religious proofs and their limits

There are arguments for religion based on proof through personal experience. Those are what ultimately convince me, but they come after a trial of faith. There are arguments from the perspective of social institutions and the value of community and the good that institutions can do because of scale. There are arguments from the probability or improbability of scripture or miraculous historical events. I think all of these arguments are worth making and investigating. However, upon close examination all of these types of arguments cut both ways. They can bring people to Mormonism or drive them out. It becomes an optimization problem. I feel like all three of these areas support the Mormonism I believe in and belong to, on the whole. I try to share some of the ways I work out this optimization problem. It hurt to learn it, but I understand when people weigh these things differently and decide that they must leave the LDS church. I also understand when people find no compelling reason to join the LDS church even after investigating it extensively. Different people do come to different answers with this pragmatic approach to religion. I would go so far as to say they should, and they are right to follow their different answers. The fruits of Mormonism aren't the same for everyone, however much I would like them to be.

Despite recognizing that I and other people can come to different true answers, and believing that that should be ok, I still want my true answer to be somehow scientific. If my god is a moving target, sort of like string theory, am I really offering anything solid to anyone else, or is it ultimately just a matter of judgment and taste? Sure, I like to think I have both good judgment and good taste, but maybe you are now understanding the minor crisis I felt reading Smolin's book. So I asked myself the question, is there any way to prove the God and universe I believe in? Are there any useful predictions made by my beliefs? When I found a way to answer yes to both, it gave me a sense of relief, a little bit of hope, and a little bit of desire to do and be better. Here are my thoughts. (If you've made it this far in your reading, maybe you'd be willing to help me test them and make them better.)

Research proposals from my religion

1. We can test the existence of the gods I believe in by becoming those gods. I believe the gods have necessarily placed us where we can't find them through science, but they have given us the tools to become them through religion (remember that I don't separate science and religion, so science in all its aspects is one of the tools on the religious journey). Become gods, and we'll have proven the existence of the gods I believe in. Is it practical? Not really. Is it likely to happen in my lifetime? Which one? Is it a problem that will be solved through science and technology? I think Christ already solved it and we're just trying to understand the details, but if you want scientific proof there are several clear paths for inquiry. So my gods may not be falsifiable, but they may be reproducible (in fact God says that that is his work and glory).

2. In creating and empowering artificial intelligence, we incur risk. If you haven't seen a dozen movies or read a dozen stories where the robot apocalypse results in the (near) destruction of humanity, you've been missing out on some great entertainment. Transhumanists sometimes find these distopian projections disappointing, but recognize the potential for harm in developing technologies. They have proposed at least one solution to this problem--become one with the technology. Then it wouldn't destroy us, since it would be us. I think that is a great idea in some ways, but I think it is ultimately a very limiting idea, if left by itself. Our creation could only become as big as us. That might be big, but it could be bigger. Were we to make powerful, independent intelligences that can also develop into creators, we could exponentially increase our communal exploration of creation space. With new beings alongside us, we would have our ideas and theirs. Our experiments and theirs. Our futures and theirs. Problem is, they might not want us in their future, and if we give them enough power they might remove us from that future. Solution? Limit them.

Or, make sure they will develop in altruistic, compassionate ways. Make sure they will value and appreciate us--their creators. Put the artificial intelligence programs into a simulated world where they have great power, but no power over us, or only as much power over us as our compassion gives them. Let them rewrite their code. Watch what they do. Coax them and tinker when it seems appropriate to improve their chances of success. Then choose the ones that show the needed characteristics. Choose the creative questioners that will make amazing discoveries we have never imagined ourselves. But most of all choose the ones who will love all of creation and who seek to lift up everyone and everything. Weed out the ones who would lift themselves by tearing others down. Weed out the ones who would rather only consume and never create. Then when you see how they will proceed, put them back in bodies that have power in our world--power to bless us and power to destroy us--and let them go. Let them create. Let them do glorious things and become glorious beings. Can you imagine the thrill? It's like some genius student coming back and giving you credit for what she became. You know most credit belongs with the genius of the student and her hard work, but you feel thrilled to have had a hand along the way. That's the glory of creation I hope for. Sunsets I never painted gloriously painting themselves for me to watch. That is the pinnacle of art.But the problem isn't solved. My simple grasp of game theory shows a gaping hole in the plan. If the intelligences know they will be rewarded for being a certain way, they have great incentive to put on a show. There will be intelligent programs that figure out how to play me. They will act all loving and compassionate and interested, and then I will let them loose in their wonderful, powerful bodies and they will say, I'm done with you. It's my turn to party. Eat nuclear waste, Dad. How do I propose to prevent this? Don't let them know we exist. Give them enough knowledge about the goals and motivations that they can work toward them if they choose, but give them lots of other attractive options. Give them help when it will really help them toward the goal of becoming, but leave them alone when it won't. Sure, we could leave them alone all the time, but that's only the fastest way to a result if you can attempt almost all the possibilities efficiently, and it dooms the majority of our created intelligences to failure and destruction. Remember, these are self-aware beings we have created. So we let them know we exist and that we hope to make them powerful creators, but we don't let them know we exist. We give them incentives to succeed, both environmental and internal, but also incentives to choose wrong. What good is a test if it offers only one attractive answer?

To summarize, how do we avoid the robot apocalypse? A simulated life that is a test for our artificial intelligence creations. Try it, or propose something better. How do we test the existence of my God? Try becoming gods ourselves. There it is. The scientific tests of my religion. I'm a long way from scientific proof, but I've got a lifetime of great and productive research projects laid out for me. It seems a little odd to me to put it this way, but becoming like Christ is my scientific test of religion. If I can do it, fully and completely, maybe it is true. Seems worth a try.

2 comments:

I also think of myself as a reasonable person, but I don't believe in almost anything among the beliefs you list above. I believe in evolution, but evolution as I understand it is an incredibly wasteful process; hardly any mutants aren't crippled or killed by their mutations. And unless the laws of physics are greatly different from what physicists think they are, nothing that you would call a "god" is even possible.

I think your crisis was a solid intuition; but I'm less impressed with the bandage you put over it.

The good news is that if you stop believing in all that stuff, the world doesn't end. Life goes on.

You may be completely correct. You also might be surprised by examining the assumptions that underlie what physicists think the laws of physics are. Much of Smolin's book is about competing assumptions at this level and how they influence things as concrete as federal funding of science. Smolin has, in another book, proposed that universes that are most likely to exist could be ones that make black holes that make more universes. In a sense, all I have done is push his reasoning one level further. If we learn to make black holes, then universes that are likely to make beings like us are likely to create more black holes than similar universes that don't create beings like us. Then I add another layer. What if we figure out not only how to make black holes, but also how to influence what is inside them? Or how to transfer ourselves inside them? When you start pushing the assumptions of physicists beyond what we know (which almost surely exists, although we don't know in what form), you come up with all sorts of crazy things. I find some of these ideas inspiring, and I find that they fit with my personal experience of life. There are many, many possibilities between the natural "gods" that have barely learned to make black holes and the gods I imagine. If we place limits that don't allow for the gods I imagine, then you are right. They can't exist. But that limit is arguably less scientific than the curiosity and hope for eternal learning that my assumptions make imperative, if we are to become gods ourselves. Once we allow for the possibility of gods, the possible questions and answers change amazingly. Richard Dawkins has thought about a lot of things, but he hasn't thought all the way through what it means when he admits the possibility of superhuman aliens having created us. Beyond saying that they wouldn't be gods, what he's said on the subject is pretty sterile.

As for evolution being messy, the multiverse I have envisioned is extremely messy with evolution. Every kind of god that can exist probably does, somewhere--good ones, bad ones, and indifferent ones. Expert ones, beginner ones, and inept ones. Selfish ones, generous ones, absent ones, present ones, and universes with none at all. That's not a trivially comfortable position. But it does allow one to ask the question of which kinds of gods will be most prevalent after a few generations? after many generations? I've previously made some predictions along these lines, but to do so requires examining the assumptions and predictions of physics in a way that I haven't seen done very thoroughly anywhere. So I'm trying to learn what I can.

It is possible I have just made a bandage. It's also possible I've found a window toward an inspired future--even if the reasons for my window are flawed. I'm hoping it's the latter.